


Alpha

by msraven



Series: Universe Hopping [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fix-It, Future Fic, Get Together, M/M, Multiverse, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-06
Updated: 2012-11-09
Packaged: 2017-11-18 02:02:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msraven/pseuds/msraven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set in the Alpha universe of Yente.</p><p><i>Clint Barton has been trying to fall out of love with Phil Coulson for years</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Clint Barton has been trying to fall out of love with Phil Coulson for _years_.

The whole thing wasn't unsurprising. Clint was self-aware enough to know that anyone showing him – an orphaned, runaway circus freak that had been kicked out of the army and had too easily fallen into work as a mercenary – kindness would easily be confused with someone who actually cared. He chalked it up as misplaced affections for a handler who didn't automatically assume that a lack of formal education meant he was stupid, who would give him enough slack during ops to not make him feel trapped, and who sat with him in medical when he inevitably ended up in one of their beds. Clint could only thank the God he didn't believe existed that he hadn't fallen in love with Fury. 

Clint assumed that the infatuation would fade as he worked more with other handlers, other senior agents. Instead, it grew and continued to grow as Coulson proved unlike any other agent Clint worked with. It was Coulson who forced Clint to retake the SHIELD aptitude and tactical strategy tests with a stern warning that he would know if Clint faked any more wrong answers. (Clint complied, but didn't understand why his test scores, real or purposely average, mattered for a sniper.) It was Coulson who dragged Clint off the range after particularly bad ops. And it was Coulson who was always sitting next to Clint’s bed in medical when he woke, regardless of who had led the op gone wrong.

Meeting and bringing Natasha into SHIELD only made it worse. Clint had had a vague hope in the back of his mind that Natasha would finally help snap him out of this pointless fixation he had on Coulson. She was beautiful and deadly and they had felt an instant connection when they met. Unfortunately, it was immediately clear that there would never be anything but a deep, sibling-like friendship between the two of them. While Clint loved Natasha in a way he’d thought impossible, he wasn't _in love_ with her. That distinction belonged solely to Agent Philip J. Coulson. 

Every time Clint thought he had it under control, had some small hope he could fall out of love with Coulson, the senior agent would do something unexpected and Clint would fall that much deeper. Coulson would invite him over to watch the Yankees game and then fall asleep on Clint’s shoulder. Clint would wake up in medical to find Coulson’s head pillowed on their joined hands. Coulson would let Clint blabber and flirt over their private comm line and, every once in a while, flirt back. It was driving Clint a little nuts. 

Then they were sent on an extended op by themselves. Clint had been bored to tears and began bugging Coulson to come up with a secret code word, just between them. Clint had proposed hundreds of suggestions over the course of the op with no real response from Coulson. “Come on Coulson,” Clint had prodded as their target was just coming into view, “you have to be able to come up with some random word that reminds you of me.” Clint had not expected the barely audible “callipygian” to come over the line. Clint had stared, in shock, at the screen for long minutes when he’d finally found the meaning of the word. He had been hopeful for about a week after that, looking for any other signs, but there were none. 

It was then that Clint realized three things: One, Clint was never going to fall out of love with Phil Coulson. Two, Clint didn't really want to stop being in love Coulson. And three, Clint needed to stop hoping that Coulson would ever love him back. He knew it would always be one-sided, even if there was a chance Coulson found something about him attractive. Phil was so beyond him, they could have been in different universes. Clint had to satisfy himself with knowing that Phil did care about him, probably more than most, but never as deeply as Clint felt. He was okay with it, really.

Clint learned to live with it. He wasn't overly subtle about how he felt – it took too much time and effort to keep up the charade, so he didn’t try. Everyone at SHIELD knew and Clint figured it was just another item on the list for describing him to new agents: _That’s Barton. You know, Hawkeye. Archer, sniper, doesn't miss…oh, and he’s stupidly in love with Agent Coulson._

As much as it had become common knowledge, Clint had never planned on ever speaking about it to another living soul. He definitely never imagined confessing his feelings to Nick Fury. Clint’s only consolation was that it was completely Fury’s fault. Fury had been the one to offer him a promotion in the first place and Fury who had refused to take his “No, thank you, sir” without an argument. So Clint was forced to explain, as succinctly as possible, that no, he would not accept a promotion. Because a promotion would mean being taken out of the field and being taken out of the field meant he couldn't watch Coulson’s back and, considering that Clint was madly in love with the man, that was a risk that he wasn't willing to take – not for Fury and not for SHIELD. The two of them stared at each other across the desk until Fury reached into his desk drawer and poured them each a measure of single-malt scotch. They finished their drinks in silence and Clint left with a small nod from Fury. Fury never mentioned the promotion again, Clint never turned down op requests from Fury, and Fury never sent Coulson into dangerous situations without Clint to watch his back. In an organization where agents were expected to wade into very dark places, love and loyalty, in any form, was never scoffed at or taken lightly.

Several more years passed and, while the rest of the world seemed to be taking a turn toward the crazy (who knew that a man flying around in an iron suit would be the most normal of their encounters?), Clint fell into a stable, if unrequited, relationship with Coulson. They watched each other’s backs and Natasha’s when she let them. They spent most of their limited downtime together. They became each other’s medical proxies because who else were they going to ask? They were good friends and it didn't matter that one side of the friendship was hopelessly in love with other. Everything was fine.

Neither one of them saw Loki coming.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tender ache that has resided in Clint’s heart for years disappears. There is no emotion, only obedience. It’s almost peaceful.

“You have heart.”

Loki touches the spear to Clint’s chest and takes it away. The tender ache that has resided in Clint’s heart for years disappears. There is no emotion, only obedience. It’s almost peaceful.

Clint nearly snaps out of Loki’s control on the plane to Germany. He falls asleep and his dreams are filled with Phil. Clint wakes and the familiar ache is back. He grasps at it, trying to push the ice out of his heart and out of his head. Loki notices his struggle near immediately and, with another touch of the spear, Clint is back to being numb. He isn’t allowed to sleep again after that. His body is sluggish, reflexes shot, by the time he steps foot on the helicarrier. Regardless, an exhausted Hawkeye is still more dangerous than most SHIELD agents. He can only thank any god other than Loki that Natasha isn’t like most agents.

Waking in the infirmary is a renewed struggle and Clint forces himself not to dwell on why it’s Natasha with him and not Coulson. He takes solace that the ache is back and Fury doesn’t feel a need to pay a visit. Clint shoves his concern for Coulson into a far corner of his mind and focuses on the battle ahead. He has a job to do. 

Fury is waiting for them, for him, when they return to HQ and Clint goes numb all over again. He feels more than hears Nat’s gasp beside him – whatever she had known before the battle, it’s clear she hasn’t believed until now. No words are spoken. No words are needed.

Clint surrenders himself to SHIELD’s custody and agrees to spend a week in isolation. Both Steve and Tony voice vehement protests and Clint would be flattered if he was capable of thinking anything beyond a litany of _wrong, wrong, wrong_. Clint leaves Natasha to deal with the Avengers and is led into holding. He makes one request, which is followed by stunned silence and then a series of blood tests before they comply, and Clint gladly slips into a sedated, dreamless sleep.

Between the sedatives and the exhaustion, Clint is asleep for over a day. He wakes and is immediately assaulted by his new reality. Phil Coulson is dead. Clint has betrayed SHIELD, caused the deaths of an unknown number of agents, and nearly destroyed the helicarrier. That he’d been under Loki’s control really doesn’t matter. 

Clint is still thankfully numb and dimly acknowledges that he’s probably in shock. They send Hill to start his debrief and they’re both seasoned enough soldiers not to attempt apologies or excuses. The shock doesn’t start to wear off until Fury shows up that night with a half-full bottle of scotch. They drink in silence and Clint wakes the next morning to a searing pain in his head that matches the one in his heart. 

The medical tests and psych evals start, interspersed with more questions from Hill and Sitwell. Clint wants to scream at the pitied looks directed at him. He had no more claim to Coulson than anyone else, he doesn’t deserve their pity. If anything, they should be holding Clint responsible for Coulson’s death. It slowly becomes clear that there is no longer a place at SHIELD for Hawkeye. Clint has proven just how dangerous he can be and the WSC is nothing if not predictable. He wakes on day three and starts planning escape routes. 

Natasha visits on day five. They don’t discuss it, but one small nod is enough. If Clint goes, she will follow. He doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve her loyalty, but Clint knows better than to dismiss or discount it. 

On day six, the cameras in his room suddenly switch off. It impresses him that the WSC has come to a decision so soon, but Clint has already accounted for this possibility. What he doesn’t expect is for Fury to walk into the room and tell him that Coulson is alive. Clint’s subsequent collapse and breakdown is a secret they’ll both take to their graves. 

Clint is released from isolation on day seven. He’s led directly from holding to medical, the staff manhandling him into scrubs, through decontamination, and to Coulson’s bedside. He doesn’t understand the urgency until the doctors start to fiddle with Coulson’s IV. Phil’s eyes flutter open and Clint’s warm gaze is the first thing he sees. 

Clint spends as much time as the doctors and Fury will allow at Coulson’s bedside. Coulson on the heavy drugs is easily agitated, calming only when Clint is there. He leaves voluntarily once, joining the Avengers to send Loki and Thor back to Asgard. Clint is too happy knowing that Coulson is alive to spare any emotion for Loki. 

Tony notices, of course Tony notices, Clint’s constant presence at Coulson’s side. The billionaire approaches Clint about finding the cellist and the archer calmly responds that Phil didn’t share that kind of information with him, all the while fighting the feeling of ice flowing back through his veins. He lays awake that night calling himself every kind of fool for believing that Coulson ever saw him as more than just another asset.

Clint swallows his pain and remains at Coulson’s side through his recovery. He knows the meaning of loyalty. While he may not be Coulson’s friend, Clint still owes his handler a lifetime’s worth of debt to repay. He viciously locks away his infatuation and does his best approximation of who he was before the glowing blue cube came to life. Clint ignores the pointed looks from Natasha and Fury or the confusion in Coulson’s eyes when Clint isn’t quite fast enough to push past his inner turmoil. 

Coulson, Clint, and the rest of the Avengers all move into Stark’s tower. Clint surprises himself with how easily he integrates into the team and tries hard not to think of it as finding a life away from Coulson. He gets sent on a few non-Avengers-related missions by SHIELD with Sitwell as his handler and is glad for the respite. Clint figures there’s no reason to make the change official until Coulson returns to full active duty.

Clint gravitates towards a friendship with Bruce and Tony. He’s not intimidated by their science jargon and they seem to appreciate Clint’s insights into real-world applications, or lack thereof, for their ideas. Clint can’t help but keep Thor at a distance because, as harmless and genuinely good the god seems to be, Clint will never again be comfortable around magic of any kind. Natasha remains a steady presence at his side. Clint and the Hulk develop a mutual affection for one another. He ignores the hurt look in Cap’s eyes when Clint continues to avoid calling him Steve.

Coulson gets better, gets stronger, and Clint makes an attempt to back away. It doesn’t take Coulson long to notice and a small flash of hurt in the older man’s eyes is enough to have Clint back on the sofa watching trashy television. Coulson starts dating again at Pepper’s insistence and Clint spends the evening curled up with Natasha not talking about it. 

Clint resolves to go back to what he knows: he is never going to fall out of love with Phil Coulson, he doesn’t really want to stop being in love Coulson, and he needs to stop hoping that Coulson will ever love him back. Resolution in place, Clint slowly starts to pull back together the tattered pieces of his life. 

They fall into a routine of sorts. Clint still spends a lot of downtime with Coulson, but it’s now tempered with time spent with the team. He stops moping whenever Coulson has a date and even tries going on a few of his own. Clint doesn’t put in the request for a new handler and is glad to be there when Coulson gets his first assignment back in the field. Clint even accepts Steve’s invitation to watch the Dodgers play the Yankees. Everything finally feels like it’s sliding into an acceptable form of normal.

Then Clint steps into Tony’s lab and watches Coulson disappear in a flash of light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I _swear_ it will get happier in chapter 3...even though there wasn't supposed to be a chapter 3. Ugh.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is not strong enough to resist everything he has ever wished for, no matter how much he still expects it all to disappear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not to rec my own fic, but I highly recommended you read [Yente](http://archiveofourown.org/works/538792/chapters/956871) before reading this chapter.

Phil is gone for ten days. 

It’s the worst 10 days of Clint’s life, including everything with Loki and the aftermath. Somehow, not knowing is much harder to deal with than believing the worst has already happened. Not knowing means that Clint doesn’t know whether he should mourn, search, or avenge. 

Clint spends ten frantic days looking for a way to bring Phil back. He pores through thousands of reports, camps out in the lab, and chases down any small lead they find. He eats and sleeps just enough to remain functional, although only Stark seems to agree with Clint’s definition of ‘just enough’. Clint goes as far as appealing to bring Reed Richards in for a consult. They don’t realize it’s a mistake until Reed suggests instant disintegration and it’s only Sue smacking her husband in the back of the head that keeps one of the Avengers from decking the scientist. 

Clint is already running on fumes when they get called to take down a flock of killer harpies. By the end of the fight, he doesn’t need any prodding to go looking for a safe place to crash. Clint falls asleep praying to every deity he can think of, including Loki, to bring Phil home. 

Clint wakes from a nightmare to a familiar voice calling his name and a warm weight on his shoulder. He almost doesn’t believe what his eyes are showing him, but then Phil’s in his arms and seeming to melt into him and Clint is happier than he has been in _so long_. He pulls back to assess for injuries and his world tilts a little at the look Phil is giving him. 

Before he can regain his sense of balance, the alarms start blaring and Fury’s yelling frantically in his ear about a security breach. They stand as the others arrive and Phil predictably starts rattling off his name, rank, and serial number. Clint is not expecting Coulson to look him in the eye and repeat the secret codeword they never officially agreed on. A laugh bubbles out of Clint even as he feels his world slip slowly off its axis. 

Clint voluntarily spends the night in medical because even he knows better than to put up more than a token protest now that the crisis has passed. He humors the nurses that stand over his bed the next morning and obediently eats every bite of the omelet they’ve kindly brought him from the cafeteria. They hand him a memo from Fury when he’s done and Clint has just enough time to grab a shower before he heads to conference room 929B at the appointed time. Clint fights a rising tide of panic as Fury explains to him and Hill why they’ve been summoned. He can feel everything around him shifting and previous experience tells Clint that change rarely goes in his favor. 

Coulson arrives and Clint tries to take some comfort in seeing his handler wearing one of his trademark suits. Then Coulson begins to speak and Clint forces a blank mask slip over his face as he listens to Coulson describe the events leading to and through his jumps across multiple realities. The man holds nothing back, speaking honestly about everything he saw and felt during his time away. Coulson keeps his eyes on Clint the entire time and the archer refuses to interpret what he sees in them. Clint looks steadily back, knowing his own eyes betray nothing

Internally, Clint is reeling. He doesn’t understand why he’s here, why Coulson needed to him to hear about all these other realities, all these other relationships. Clint sees better from a distance and this all just too, too close. He doesn’t know what Coulson expects him to see, what Coulson expects him to understand. What he can see is the common thread that runs between each reality - none of the men that the various Coulsons fell in love with are _Clint_. 

Fury and Hill leave without any comment. Clint doesn’t want to believe that Coulson is ending whatever minimal relationship they have like this and closes his eyes against the apology etched across Coulson’s face. He can’t help instinctively curling around himself in the hopes of staving off the rejection he knows is about to come. It’s worse, he thinks, for rejection to come with a soft touch instead of a hard slap. 

Clint doesn’t realize he’s asked a question until the words leave his lips. And then Coulson is in front of him, touching him in a way that doesn’t feel like rejection and Clint doesn’t know what to believe. 

They make it back to the tower, somehow managing not to run into the others, and Phil tells him with tenders words, light touches, and heady kisses how he loves Clint, has always loved Clint. Phil repeats a mantra of apologies into his skin and Clint can’t help but surrender. He is not strong enough to resist everything he has ever wished for, no matter how much he still expects it all to disappear.

Clint tries, for Phil’s sake, to believe that this is all really meant for him, that the same man who was discarded by his own family was deserving of all this unconditional love. Clint trusts that Phil knows his own heart, trusts that Phil means it down to his core when he tells Clint he loves him. What Clint doesn’t trust is whether a man with so much red in ledger had the right to love a man like Phil Coulson. It’s not so much that Clint expects it to fail, but he can’t imagine it will last, so he resolves to enjoy every moment while he can. 

It still surprises Clint when Phil asks to marry him and Phil’s laughter dulls some of the pain from a potentially broken nose. Clint is breathless as they repeat their vows, clutching at Phil’s hands as if he still expects the older man to flee. He continues to look at the simple band on his finger in awe, rubbing absently at the tattoo underneath when he’s in the field. There are still days when Clint can’t hide that he still hasn’t quite found his balance in this new life. Days when he has to duck his head against the disappointment in Phil’s eyes. Days when he lets himself get soothed and coddled and loved. 

Clint doesn’t expect to find his balance in the middle of a bloodbath.

It’s a SHIELD only op. Clint, Coulson, and a handful of other agents are sent to watch an exchange between two rival gangs. Their goal is to apprehend whomever is left standing at the end of what promises to be a bloody meeting, but there is no movement when the echos of gunshots finally fades away. Clint meticulously clears the building and reports that there are no survivors. He doesn’t know what makes him turn, makes him look underneath a pile of blankets sitting untouched by the devastation. 

Clint stares down at the sleeping infant in his arms and feels the ground solidify beneath his feet, steady in a way it hasn't been since Phil first held a nondescript metal sphere. Phil appears with a warm hand on the small of Clint’s back and reaches out to place the other hand on the baby’s head. Clint is never able to properly explain the feeling in that moment of all the pieces of his soul sliding into place.

Phil’s eyes meet Clint’s and widen at what he sees. The smile that follows is near-blinding in its intensity because Phil knows that Clint finally _believes_. Clint is deserving of all of this. Love, life, and family are in his grasp and he’s never letting go. 

“James,” Clint says with smile. “His name is James.”

_Fin_


End file.
